April 22: With cars and two-wheelers rapidly increasing in recent years and public dependence on the government transport slipping, Chennai seems choking to death on its roads.

A simple piece of stat scares: while a little over half of Chennai population had used the government buses and electric trains across the city, their numbers dropped to below 25 per cent by 2008. “We need to reverse this trend, very urgently. The city will choke otherwise,” urban planning expert M. G. Devasahayam says.

The shift of people’s preference from the cheaper public transport to the far more expensive private options-owning cars or hiring autos and taxis-must be blamed only on the failing state services that did not keep pace with the needs of a rising population. “Bus services have, in particular, deteriorated even though there is an impression that more and more buses are being added to the fleets of the various state transport corporations. And the MRTS has failed owing to poor patronage,” says Mr Devasahayam, a former civil servant now heading ‘Sustain’, a citizens’ alliance for sustainable living.

The MRTS could have delivered on its big promise to reduce road congestion if only the urban planners had linked these electric train services, run through some of the most crowded neighbourhoods, with the bus transport network.

Professor K. P. Subramanian, formerly of the urban transport department in the Anna University, says, “You must have bus-stops right outside these train stations and there must be ample parking space so that the MRTS commuters can leave their cars and scooters and take the train to their places of work or shopping.”
“There are no proper approach roads to our stations in many places and this discourages commuters, specially women, as they have to pass through unpleasant slums to catch the train. Consequently, they either crowd the buses or opt for private transport,” says a senior railway official, requesting anonymity.

The railway official points out that all the efforts by his ministry to persuade the state government to lay good and well-lit roads to the MRTS stations have failed.

Result: only around 76,000 commuters use the MRTS in a city of over 6.5 million people.

M. Parthasarathy, a senior government official, says, “Initially, I used the MRTS to reach my office in Chepauk but now I am forced to take my car and spend more money on petrol because there is no parking facility at the Tiruvanmiyur station.”

Software professional John Joseph, who reaches his Tidel Park office by car, says, “Just imagine what would have happened to Mumbai if there were no synergy between its train and bus services. It would have been chaos, as one car would be riding on another.”